Author Archives for
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This is a traveler case study. (Read others or nominate yourself.)
A law student turned global storyteller, La Carmina has put her love of seeing the world through a subculture lens into books, articles, and television. Her stories just might inspire you to see your travels a little differently.
I'm La Carmina, a Goth girl from Vancouver, Canada. I started my travel and fashion blog in 2007 while studying at Yale Law. I loved connecting with people online, and sharing my passion for subcultures and alternative beauty around the world.
Over time, my site grew from a hobby into full-time opportunities I never imagined: publishing books, writing for CNN Travel, and hosting TV shows on networks like Travel Channel, Discovery and National Geographic.
Recently, I've put my focus on travel-related projects. My film team and I visit about one destination each month, and tell stories that appeal to millennial travelers—such as Korean cat cafes, Budapest music festivals, Cape Town drag queens, and Israel indie designers.
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When I went to Burma several years ago I stayed in a nice guest house for about $35 a night. The rate included free Wifi and a large banana pancake for breakfast. Mmmmmm.
After I came home, I talked with someone who had also been there. "How much did you pay?" he asked.
"Oh... about $30-40 a night," I said. I may also have mentioned the delicious banana pancake. Mmmmmm.
"That’s crazy!" He said. "You got ripped off... there are places you can stay for just $10 or less."
I didn’t know how to respond. Was I “ripped off?” Well, I guess I could have paid less... but I was happy with the experience, so for me the rate was a great value.
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Things I found on long walks in foreign cities, or perhaps when someone posted them on Twitter.
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This is a traveler case study. (Read others or nominate yourself.)
A quester and traveler, Carole Rosenblat decided to take a deep dive into rarely explored territory: the art of unplanned travel. She runs a blog and lets her readers choose where she travels, giving herself only a few days to get from one place to another.
I write as I travel so readers - who I call my Virtual Travel Buddies - get to be on the road with me. I include readers in on my quirky observations and my challenges and mistakes along the way (I get lost a lot). While traveling, I find organizations or projects with which to volunteer and I profile them on my philanthropic site, Rebel With a Cause, to give them exposure to a wider audience.
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Greetings from Seattle! This morning we kicked off the live broadcast for "Make Your Dream Trip a Reality"... and a ton of you were watching!
Creative Live is rebroadcasting the session throughout the day, so tune in over here and you can still catch the whole thing.
(If you’re reading this another day, we may be on to another session—but we have six weeks of them, so there's still plenty to go.)
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Hey everyone, just a quick reminder: tomorrow morning we kick off our new “Make Your Dream Trip a Reality” course on Creative Live. You can watch for free starting at 9am Pacific time.
Link: RSVP (It’s Free) and Join In Here
Yesterday we went to the studio for a production meeting with the whole team. This is a big undertaking, and a bunch of people have been working on it for weeks (okay, months).
Oh, and we even got a sneak-peek of our awesome set featuring a “travel hacking hot seat” with First Class seats borrowed from the Seattle Museum of Flight. We're so excited!
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This is a traveler case study. (Read others or nominate yourself.)
What's it like to live and work as a nomadic, traveling musician who relies on crowd-sourced support? We found a guy doing exactly that. Here are his stories from three continents and counting.
I was raised barefoot and wild on the tip of South Africa, in a little village called Scarborough. My early days were spent in my father’s guitar making workshop as he crafted some of the world's top custom guitars.
My boundaries were the ocean and the mountain, and my whole life has been shaped by those first years of raw nature and unfettered adventure.
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This is an excerpt from Working On the Road: The Unconventional Guide to Full-Time Freedom by Nora Dunn.
Traveling full-time can actually cost far less than it does to live in one place. This is due to a number of cost-saving factors, ranging from volunteering in trade for free accommodation, using frequent flyer miles, spending time in places where the cost of living is cheaper (sometimes), and judiciously monitoring your spending.
There's no template solution to how much money you’ll need to begin your life working abroad, but you can use these questions to help gauge the expenses you’ll have and how they will vary based on itineraries, priorities and travel style.
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Friday is giveaway day. Comment to win!
This week's giveaway is a super cool World Kitchen Box from GlobeIn. GlobeIn is an online marketplace that curates fair-trade, handcrafted goods from artisans around the world into a monthly themed "globe in a box."
What you need to know:
- This month's box comes with a mini ceramic made in Tunisia and a hand-woven towel from Guatemala
- Includes Madagascar pure ground vanilla and Inka salt from Peru
- And fresh Nicaraguan coffee with Indonesian coconut sugar
- This giveaway is available to readers worldwide
- Our cats and biased judges will pick someone on Sunday night at 6pm PST
Enter this week’s giveaway by posting a comment. Check back on Sunday night and we’ll announce the winner!
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This is a traveler case study. (Read others or nominate yourself.)
Mirva Lempiäinen fell in love with beaches of all kinds during college. Her passion caused her to build a career and friend base that allows her to travel to sandy destinations almost as often as she'd like.
Tell us about yourself.
I’m a 33-year-old freelance journalist from Finland. I’ve been actively roaming the globe for almost 15 years, and have visited around 70 countries (so far). Currently, I’m spending the winter on the French island of Guadeloupe in the Caribbean which suits me quite well.
I have a bad beach addiction: over the past decade I’ve spent months every year on tropical beaches around the world. You could say I’m perpetually in search of the perfect beach. I’m also a New Yorker now (and surprisingly to many, New York actually has some pretty nice beaches, too!).
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My tax return is complicated for a lot of reasons. First, I run several different businesses which all have their own set of accounting. WDS, our annual gathering, has its own legal structure, including a foundation that is completely separate from all my other projects. Last year we started an all-new event that also has its own legal structure.
So yeah, it’s complicated. It takes about 20 hours just to prepare all the info for my accountant, and as with most tax-prep tasks, it’s not usually a fun process. But I do enjoy seeing some of the charges on my statements from the previous year. They remind me of the crazy life I have, and the many fun experiences that I'm fortunate to participate in.
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I like yoga, which means I tell people I practice all the time, but in reality only go to class a couple times a month. When I saw these photos of Slovenian architect Anja Humljan, I was amazed.
Anja has taken her passion for yoga and movement into urban environments—a global experiment in how we connect with cities. Take a look for yourself.
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Every Friday is giveaway day. Comment to win!
- This kit comes with Armani moisturizer, lip balm, sleep mask (good for napping on the road AND at home), fancy floss, and cozy black socks
- Okay, technically this is a men's kit—but ladies, you can win too! It's a super snazzy kit for anyone
- The Giorgio Armani travel case is pretty nice too
- This giveaway is available to readers worldwide. Anyone can win!
- Our cats and biased judges will pick someone on Sunday night at 6pm PST
Enter this week’s giveaway by posting a comment. Check back Sunday night when we announce the winner!
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I get a lot of questions from people about how they can make money WHILE traveling. To help provide answers, we teamed up with Nora Dunn (a friend and successful long-term digital nomad) to craft this in-depth, comprehensive resource: --> Working on the Road: The Unconventional Guide to Full-Time Freedom
By picking up this guide, you'll get access to:
- Job reviews and interviews with professionals in different on-the-road careers
- Options and tips for landing online work (freelancing, teaching abroad, telecommuting, working on boats, starting or running a business, and much more)
- Logistical solutions and tools for working from afar, budgeting, and managing a virtual lifestyle
- Resources for mobilizing your location dependent operation (and the whole family)
- A 100% Satisfaction Guarantee (it will help you, or you don't pay)
--> Check it out over here
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Want to make money while on the road? It’s definitely possible, and more and more people are doing it all the time—but you may need to change your thinking to make it happen.
Our first Unconventional Guide of 2015 launches this Tuesday morning. It’s all about what works—and what doesn’t—when it comes to heading out into the world as a long-term (or at least frequent) traveler.
The premise might surprise you: On its own, traveling has little to do with earning money. You earn money by making or sharing something that other people find valuable. That's it. If you’re going to get paid while abroad, you have to think about what you can do that’s relevant and interesting to others.
What can that be? Let's first consider the most common things people think of when they think of “getting paid to travel.” As we’ll see, they’re all problematic in some way.
